"Liquor king" of Donbas shot dead in Crimea

n the morning on December 22, in the town of Hurzuf in the occupied Crimea businessman Mykhailo Lyashko was shot dead. He was known in some circles as a criminal authority as "Mishanya cross-eyed" and cooperated with authorities of Donetsk rebels’ republic DPR.

The website Prestupnosty.Net reported citing its source.

"In the morning today his bodyguards heard three muffled claps, and after entering the house they found the body of their boss with three bullet wounds," the source said.

The report noted that Lyashko had close ties with the Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov, and he was close to former Party of Regions leader Borys Kolesnikov.

Mykhailo Lyashko was known not only as liquor king of Donbas but also as a criminal authority in the 90s as "Mishanya cross-eyed" or "Mikhal Mikhalych."

According to media reports, after the Russian aggression in Donbas he worked very closely with self-declared leaders of the so-called "DPR" and was engaged in trading schemes of scrap metal sales.